Orwellian government is not just repressive government; it is a government that seeks to reprogram your brain by controlling facts and language.

With Trump’s election, Progressives have suddenly rediscovered both Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, her turgid 1980s attack on the Moral Majority and George Orwell’s 1984 (Signet Classics), one of the most brilliant, powerful books ever written. As one might guess, Progressives readers of the first book misunderstand American Christianity (as well as Trump’s casual relationship with it) while readers of the second book completely misunderstand Orwell’s point.

Into that gap steps a TED-ed video, which carefully explains that “Orwellian” refers, not to physical force, but to a form of mental tyranny that effectively uses words to allow the government to invade people’s brains: [Read more…]

Leftists love to rewrite the past, a creative totalitarian approach that allows them to forget all the lessons — both good and bad — that history teaches. For today’s lesson about the past’s relevance, this post looks at one movie from 1946 and one book from 1948 and uses their wisdom to expose socialist fallacies, both about economics and about human thought.

The movie from 1946 is Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, the perennial Christmas classic that sees Clarence the Angel teach George Bailey that even an apparently undistinguished, and often frustrated, life can have inestimable value. It popped into my mind when I read an article giving tips for talking to a Leftist about “income inequality,” a catch-phrase justifying government wealth redistribution.

According to Beverly Hallberg, the first thing a conservative should do is seek common ground with the Leftist. After all, conservatives are as hostile to poverty as Leftists are. It’s just that conservatives seek a market-based approach, while Leftists seek a government redistribution approach. The second step in the dialog is to explain that we no longer live in a feudal age that saw wealth locked into

The second step in the dialog is to explain to the Leftist that we no longer live in a feudal age that sees wealth locked into generational land ownership and that is no longer socially or economically stratified. Instead, wealth and class are fluid commodities, with the former working best when constantly reinvested in the marketplace, thereby reinvigorating both the original investor and those downstream from that investment. According to Hallberg, the conservative needs to remind the Leftist about the fact that handing money to the government takes it away from small business owners that create most of the dynamism in the American marketplace:

No wonder 1984 is no longer required reading in high schools. One of the Little Bookworms, after a summer of sloth, decided to read something noteworthy before returning to school. Her choice was George Orwell’s 1984, which I would include in any top 25 or even top 10 reading list.

Despite how wonderful 1984 is, both in terms of style and content, my Little Bookworm managed to pass all the way through a very highly rated public school without any exposure to Orwell at all — no 1984, no Animal Farm, no The Road to Wigan Pier, and no Politics and the English Language. George Orwell is persona non grata in our local high school.

My Little Bookworm did give me some insight into why public schools are loath to teach one of the greatest writers and thinkers in the English language. When we asked what her takeaway was from the book, she had this to say: “That whole Thought Police thing Orwell wrote about — it’s just like Political Correctness. There are no clear rules, but you have to think correctly or you get into trouble.”

Islam, the rapey religion. Not all Muslim men are rapists. Indeed, most Muslim men are not rapists. But when we look at the vast increase in rapes in countries such as Sweden or Denmark, or when we see sexual assaults across Germany, or when five-year-olds are raped by a group older boys here in America, it’s not a coincidence that a disproportionate number of these rapists and assaulters were raised in the Muslim tradition. As Robert Spencer explains, rape is hardwired in Islam.

The other day, I wrote that David Denby, a soggy leftist film reviewer at The New Yorker was trying his hands at political commentary with a hate piece against Ted Cruz — one based entirely on the fact that Denby, no beauty himself, finds Cruz physically unattractive.

I’m not the only one noticing the hate raining down on Cruz, a hatred unanchored to what he actually is, does or says. Bryan Preston calls it “The Emanuel Goldstein-ing of Ted Cruz.” Because you’re all ridiculously erudite (much more so than I am), you remember Emanuel Goldstein as the object of the daily “two minutes of hatred” in 1984. It was a useful way to keep both party members and proles from turning their hatred and discontent onto Big Brother.

George Orwell understood that good language clarifies and bad language corrupts. He’d moved amongst Communists, so he understood how controlling people requires controlling language. One cannot fully erase ideas if the language to express them still exists — so one changes the language. In 1984, Orwell envisioned an Auschwitz-like world (“arbeit macht frei”) that takes old words and perverts their meaning so much that they become meaningless. He called this linguistic world “double think”:

“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.”

The three most famous examples of double think from 1984 are, of course, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength.

Democrat Joe Manchin has flung himself with total abandonment into the world of double think. In an interview on Fox News, Manchin vows to continue the fight to put limits on Americans’ rights to possess and use guns. During that interview, he collapses into an Orwellian double think heap:

This not only protects your Second Amendment rights, it expands your Second Amendment rights.

Think about that for a moment. The Second Amendment, as most recently interpreted by the Supreme Court, gives an un-infringeable right to bear arms, one that is predicated on a well-regulated militia as understood in the 18th century — a people’s army, not a standing army. In other words, every American is a potential militia member and therefore has an absolute right to bear arms.

How in the world, then, can any legislation expand up on that absolute right that is inherent in every American? By definition, our right to bear arms cannot be expanded because it is predicated upon 100% gun saturation. That means that any legislation can only leave the right unchanged, in which case the legislation is unnecessary, or it can limit that right, in which case the legislation is unconstitutional.

Faced with this logical conundrum, Manchin does the only thing left to do, which is to pervert language: By limiting your right to bear arms we will expand your right to bear arms.

George Orwell knew the Left and he knew how the Left thinks. There are no surprises. The only “surprises” that occur are when we let down our guard.

Actually, two things to get your Friday off to a good start (or, if you’re not on the West Coast, to brighten whatever part of the day or night you’re currently enjoying).

The first riffs off of the “So God made a farmer” Super Bowl commercial:

And the second, which requires about 25 minutes of your time, is an absolutely wonderful, enjoyable, brilliant, talk that Dr. Benjamin Carson gave at the National Prayer Breakfast:

The irony is that, because he starts the talk with four Biblical quotations, and because he refers to God and prayers once during the speech, there is no way that this marvelous talk will ever see the light of day in public schools. Oh, well. It probably doesn’t matter, because the kids are spending way too much classroom time watching such “important” films as “V for Vendetta.”

Yup, you heard that right. As part of reading Orwell’s timeless attack on totalitarianism, local high school kids got to watch “V for Vendetta.” Certainly “V for Vendetta” was marketed as a movie about individuals fighting government totalitarianism, something Orwell would have appreciated. In fact, though, that movie was pure Leftist crap or, as one reviewer said,

Instead of producing a faithful adaptation that might appeal broadly to audiences, the Wachowski Clan used the libertarian message as a bait and switch to hide a disgustingly crude anti-Christian, pro-Lenin, neo-multiculturalist, anti-Republican, pro-homosexual, anti-Bush lard train that makes up the duration of the picture.

Plundering an original story for box office cash is low enough, yet the greater Wachowski crime is their inability (formerly witnessed in Matrix Reloaded) to construct a story with present—albeit subtle–political bias that is still interesting to watch. What V for Vendetta becomes then, is simply a Democratic Party propaganda poster for the 2006 elections rather than a useful commentary on personal freedom in today’s polarized era.

Besides the film’s obvious attempts to malign Christianity by placing crosses in the Norsefire flag and including a High Priest who enjoys raping young girls with the support of the party, Vendetta manages to incorporate two rather pointless swipes against Western values to fit its role as a spin flick for the Marxist Left. For one, main character Evie’s uncle is a firm anti-conservative activist who keeps a copy of the Qu’ran in his basement for its “artistry.” At the same time, Norsefire chancellor Adam Sutler is a radical Bible-thumper who rules Britain as an unapologetic fascist assisted by frays of Dick Cheney-esque lackeys and anti-terrorist inspectors. No one is denying that Christian theocrats can exist, but should Islam be given a free pass on this one? Because Iran’s Ayatollah must surely oppress women only because it is Islamic “artistry,” correct?

Then the audience experiences the LGBT campaign’s cameo (actually more like Act III of the picture). Arrested for treason and thrown into a concentration camp, Evie discovers the correspondences of two lesbians, apparently helpless victims of Norsefire’s religious extremism. Just in case gay men or transsexuals become offended, the filmmakers also imply that anarchist V is a homosexual and/or a cross dresser.

Yeah. I agree wholeheartedly. I found the movie simultaneously offensive and, even worse, stupid. But this is what they feed our children, while things such as Dr. Carson’s speech never penetrate those school walls.